The corona pandemic is a horrifying scenario especially for couples who were planning a pregnancy in 2020. As we all are aware, old age people, hypertensives, diabetics, etc are more prone to corona stringency. Similarly, coronavirus is more severe in pregnant women. Therefore, all western gynecological associations have advised postponing pregnancy till the corona scare is over. It is manageable for all those couples who are in their 20's. But all couples in their 30's especially women over 35yrs can lose their precious window of opportunity for natural conception while waiting for things to normalize. It's so because women are born with a fixed reserve of eggs which starts declining sharply after 35years of age. Few may still conceive with the help of fertility drugs but some of them will have to undergo IVF with donor eggs. So what are their options?
Either plan a pregnancy asap or delay your pregnancy for next year keeping one's fingers crossed and hoping that there will not be any difficulty while trying pregnancy naturally.
Both the options are unacceptable and unsatisfactory.
With the advancement of medical science now its possible to get your eggs and embryos preserved for use in the future. That is known as Egg freezing or Embryo freezing. In this procedure, eggs are painlessly retrieved under anesthesia, from your body without any scar or stitches. These eggs or embryos are cooled and kept frozen in liquid nitrogen tank slots. These are well marked and labeled with your name. Once frozen these can be preserved for as long as you want without causing any damage to them. Whenever you want you can use them in the future and plan your pregnancy according to your wish.
The whole procedure involves a cost of approximately 1.5 lacs INR initially, followed by freezing rent of approx 25 to 30 thousand INR per year. The total duration for the procedure involves 10-12 days of daily injections. These are normal hormonal injections taken like common intramuscular or subcutaneous injections only. These are like daily insulin injections taken subcutaneously by diabetics. Quite easy to take without any major side effects. Once ultrasound shows that eggs are ready for retrieval, one last trigger injection is taken and you are asked to visit the clinic for a short daycare procedure of egg retrieval. You have to go empty stomach without any food or water in last 8hours. In case you take any medicine for thyroid ailment then you are advised to take your pill in the morning empty stomach with just a sip of water. The whole procedure is done under short general anesthesia so it's completely painless. After the procedure, there can be slight discomfort for which pain killers are advised. To prevent any infection, an antibiotic shot is given just before the procedure. Your partner is asked to provide semen sample the same time and eggs are fertilized with sperms and blastocyst embryos are frozen and preserved on day 5 of egg retrieval. In case you are single then these eggs retrieved from your body are preserved the same day as they are and these can be fertilized whenever you find your partner and are ready to plan pregnancy. This way your same good quality eggs can be used even if you are planning a pregnancy in your late 30's or 40's.